


Field Trip

by Haely_Potter



Series: Bending the Universe [21]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Bad Wolf, F/M, Gen, Mature references but nothing explicit, Reunion, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 11:30:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1981287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haely_Potter/pseuds/Haely_Potter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curiosity may have killed the cat, but when Rose sees a man steal a little girl's drink in a museum, and for the little girl then hide, she had to find out what was going on. She just didn't expect the universe to be ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Field Trip

Rose didn't want to be there. It was a field trip to the National Museum to the exhibit of the Anomalies and her mum had insisted she go.

Okay, so, the Pandorica was interesting but what did she care about the penguins of the Nile or some old coffin of some stinking old king?

Bored out of her mind, she saw a man, a little younger than mum but still someone she'd hit on, run in the Pandorica exhibit, focusing on a girl some years younger than her. He left a post-it note on the actual Pandorica, which Rose knew was a big no-no. You're not supposed to touch the exhibit pieces, the teachers all said so.

Anyway, the girl took the post-it, having somehow lost her drink, and hid in the make-believe foliage in the same room as the Pandorica.

Rose crept over to her, hearing a woman call out for Amelia, and guessing it was the girl's name.

"What are you doin'?" she whispered, crouching beside her.

"Hiding," the girl whispered back, like it was obvious. Her accent was Scottish, which sounded odd to Rose who was used to the London way of speaking.

"I can see that, but why?"

"I'm on a secret mission," the girl declared proudly but quietly. She took out a brochure and showed it to Rose. The Pandorica was circled with a red marker and  _Come along, Pond_ was written on the other side of it _._  "This was dropped through our mail slot last night. I whined until aunt Sharon took me. Then I found this," she showed the post-it note.  _Stick around, Pond_  was written on it with the same red marker. "So, I'm going to hide here until the Museum closes for the night. What about you?"

"Our class won some stupid competition held by some corporation, Bad Dog or Ugly Wolf or somethin'," Rose answered with a shrug. "D'you want some company?"

Now was the girl's turn to shrug. "I won't mind, but I think you mean Bad Wolf. 'M Amelia Pond and I'm seven. You?"

"Yeah, that. I'm Rose Tyler, an' I'm almost ten," grinned Rose. She wondered if she should shake hands with Amelia like she'd seen grown-ups do, but decided against it. "D'you mind if I call you Amy?"

"I guess it's okay," said Amy thoughtfully. "It's not like you should use your real name during a secret mission. You can be Rosie then."

Rose scrunched up her nose. She'd never liked being called Rosie, but... for the sake of a secret mission, she could stand it. "Where are you from?"

The whispered conversation about stars and how silly grown-ups were carried well into the evening and tapered off completely when the Museum was closed for the night so that they wouldn't be discovered.

Rose exited the foliage of the penguins of the Nile exhibit first, being the older one, to make sure the way was clear. After all, it was Amy's secret mission. It wouldn't be foiled if  _Rose_  was caught. Amy followed a few seconds later without waiting for the 'all-clear' sign, and knocked over one of the stuffed penguins.

"Sorry," Amy told the penguin.

"Shh!" Rose shushed her. "So what now?"

Amy shrugged and started to slowly make her way to the Pandorica. Rose held her hand, holding her close, because at night everything they'd scoffed at in daylight seemed much scarier in the dark.

"I think..." started Amy, "I think it's all to do with the Pandorica."

They stood in front of the giant metal cube.

"Do you think you should touch it?" hissed Rose thoughtfully. "That's how it's always done in the movies."

"Guess so," Amy shrugged and slipped under the velvet rope separating the adoring public from the Pandorica. Hesitantly she laid her palm against the cold metal side of the Pandorica.

Rose gasped when the engravings on the Pandorica's side started to glow an eerie green. Amy took notice of it a second later and started backing away when the Pandorica began to make some sort of whirring noise, like it was starting or something. Quickly she once again slipped under the velvet rope and took Rose's hand, sliding slightly behind her.

The two girl watched in fascination as the Pandorica slid open to reveal a twenty-something-year-old ginger woman shackled to some sort of chair.

"Okay kid-s," she said, glancing at Rose in slight surprise, obviously not having expected her, "this is where it gets complicated."

She then started to unstrap herself from what ever the restraints on her wrists were. Once she was free, she was slightly unsteady on her feet and fell down when she tried to go over the velvet rope, taking it down with her.

"Are you alright?" asked Amy as Rose approached the woman warily, offering her a hand up which the woman waved away. "Who are you?"

"I'm – fine," the woman gasped. "I'm supposed to rest. Got to rest, the Doctor says."

Amy and Rose glanced at each other. "What Doctor?" Rose voiced their question.

The woman tapped her head. "He's in here. Left a message in my head like an answer phone." She looked around for the first time. "Where am I? Hang on..."

"It's the National Museum," Rose said. "And it's April 3rd, 1996."

The woman nodded. "I was here once when I was a little g-" her eyes fell on Amy and her smile fell. "Yeah... complicated." She stood up. "1996, you said? Looks about right," she said, looking Amy over.

"Who are you?" Amy asked, frown on her face.

"It's a long story," the woman said as she started to take in the exhibit they were in, walking out of the room Pandorica was held in. She found the Pandorica's timeline. "Oh... a  _very_  long story."

"There's a video of it over there," Rose said and pointed to the TV screen in the Pandorica room.

"Thanks squirt," the woman said distractedly. "Who are you again?"

"She's Rose Tyler, and she's awesome," said Amy. "She believes in stars like I do. She has dreams that she visits other planets."

"Cool," the woman said absentmindedly, watching the video compersing the Pandorica's history in three minutes, telling about the Lone Centurion.

When the film had ended, the screen went blank and-

"Exterminate!" was heard from room leading to the Pandorica's room.

The woman ran to the doorway and pushed Amy and Rose behind her.

It was the weird stone statue of the giant pepper pot with a plunger and a whisk, and it was moving and it was getting closer to them. Rose squeezed Amy's hand, trying to shield her with her body like the woman was doing to the both of them.

And in the next second the man Rose had seen leaving Amy the note on the Pandorica appeared out of nowhere, saying "-trouble," of all things.

"Yes, we are in," Rose said. "At least I am. Mum doesn't like it when I stay out after the dark."

The man whirled around, eyes landing on the woman, then Amy and finally Rose.

"Two of you?" he said. "And Rose Tyler. Complicated."

"Exterminate!" the stone thing cried again, its mechanic voice grating on Rose's ears, like the cries of the same thing from her nightmares.

The man whirled around quickly, crouching slightly, and backing away from the thing.

"Weapons system restoring," the thing said.

The man whirled around again, took Rose's free hand, pushed the woman in front of him and dragged Rose (who dragged Amy) with him to hide behind the Pandorica. "Come along, Ponds and Rose Tyler!"

"Exterminate!" the stone thing continued to cry after them.

"What are we doing?" the woman asked.

The man who had run into the exhibit of how the Pandorica had been found and knocked into one of the mannequins, took the fez and got out of the exhibit, Rose's hand still in his cooler one.

"Well, we are running into a dead-end where I'll have a brilliant plan that basically involves not being in one," the man spoke quickly.

"What's going on?" asked a new voice with a torch from the entry of the room where the stone thing was.

"Get out of here. Go! Just run!" the man shouted at the museum guard while taking cover behind the Pandorica.

"Drop the device!" the stone thing told the guard.

"It's not a weapon. Scan it," the man said, oddly calm in the situation. But Rose couldn't pass judgement on anyone, seeing as she wasn't screaming bloody murder either. "It's not a weapon, and you don't have the power to waste."

"Scans indicate intruder unarmed," the stone things said.

Rose peaked behind the man as the guard dropped the torch. "Do you think?" asked guard and his hand, which had been straight, seemed to be chopped down just before the knuckles with a gun inside, and shot the stone thing in the thing Rose had dubbed eye stalk.

"Vision impaired!" the stone thing shouted as its head? spun around. "Vision..." it trailed off, apparently dying.

"Amy!" the man called and Rose looked at Amy with raised eyebrows.

"What's he want with you?" she asked her friend who shrugged, but before she could answer, the woman ran past them to the guard's arms.

"Rory!" she called, hugging him tightly.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I couldn't help it," he said, his voice cracking as he looked at the woman. "It just happened."

"Oh shut up," the woman said and kissed him forcefully.

"Yeah, shut up," the man said, dragging Rose and Amy closer to the kissing couple. "Because we've got to go. Come on."

The couple stopped kissing but ignored the man.

"I waited. Two thousand years I've waited for you," he said, about to burst in to tears if Rose knew anything.

"No, still shut up," the woman said and pulled his face closer again, smashing their mouths together.

The man fluttered around them nervously. "And break. And breathe. Well, somebody didn't get out much in two thousand years."

Amy tugged on Roses hand, making her turn to her. "I'm thirsty."

Rose turned to the man and tugged his hand in turn, immediately getting his attention. "Amy's thirsty," she said, swinging her and Amy's clasped hands. "Can she get a drink?"

The man frowned. "Oh, it's all mouths today, isn't it." Then he got a thoughtful look on his face. "The light. The light from the Pandorica must have hit the Dalek."

_A Dalek's a genius. It can calculate a thousand billion combinations in one second flat._

The voice from Rose's dreams penetrated her mind as she saw the Dalek move it's whisk-like weapon.

"Out! Out! Out!" the man shouted urgently, pushing Rose and Amy to run in front of him and past the couple who'd finally stopped snogging.

They ran to the reception of the museum, Amy, the woman and Rose being pushed to the front of the group. Finally, the man closed the last set of doors, glancing at the guard, Rory if Rose had understood right.

"So, two thousand years," the man asked conversationally. "How did you do?"

"Stayed out of trouble," answered Rory and Rose giggled when the man looked confusedly at the fez he was carrying.

Coming to a conclusion, he put it on his head, and Rose thought he looked very cute with it. "Oh. How?" he asked and scurried to get something else to use to bar the door.

"Unsuccessfully," sighed Rory, then tensed. "The mop!" The man pointed it's business end at them. "That's how you looked all those years ago when you gave me the sonic."

The man put it under his arm. "Ah. No time to lose then," he said and fiddled with something on his wrist that Rose couldn't see, before disappearing with the same kind of electric sound as he'd appeared with.

Rose and Amy stood stock still, barely believing their eyes.

The the man appeared again and put the mop through the door handles. "Oops, sorry," he told them, disappearing again.

Amy tugged the woman's hand. "How can he do that? Is he magic?"

Rose pointed at Rory. "He can shoot things from his hand and she was inside the Pandorica for two thousand years. I think they're all magic."

Amy smiled at her and the two grown-ups looked at each other.

Then the man appeared again. "Right, let's go then," he said and ran past them all to the stairs but stopped suddenly, turning around. "Wait! Now I don't have the sonic. I just gave it to Rory two thousand years ago," he said, disappearing and reappearing again. Rose was starting to feel dizzy from all that disappearing and reappearing and talk of two thousand years ago. "Right then," he said, went over to the woman, stuck his hand inside her jacket and took out a strange looking wand thing. "Off we go! No, hang on." He pointed at Amy and Rose and ran up to them, staring at them intently, reminding Rose of the two men in her dreams. "How did you know to come here? It's Tuesday. A school day."

Amy handed him the brochure and the post-it note which the man looked over quickly before throwing them over his shoulders. "Ah, my handwriting. Okay."

The man dashed over to the leaflet stand, snatching one, and then over to the reception desk to get the yellow post-it note pad and the red marker, once again fiddling with the wrist thing again and Rose wasn't at all surprised anymore when he disappeared and reappeared. He thrust the drink he'd earlier stolen from Amy to her hand. "Drink up," he said. Then he turned his attention to her. "And you, Rose Tyler?"

She shrugged. "Our class won an all-expenses-paid field trip from Bad Wolf corporation. I just saw you steal Amy's drink and leave the post-it and saw her hide. I wanted to know what was going on, so I followed her and and stayed with her."

His grin was wide and bright and he pulled her closer to him, quickly kissing her forehead. Normally Rose would have been weirded out, but for some reason... this man just made her feel safe. "You, Rose Tyler, are brilliant," he whispered, straightened up, took her hand and started to go up the stairs again. "That means I don't have to meddle in your past if it's Bad Wolf's doing."

"What is that?" the woman asked, looking at the man's wrist. "How are you doing that?"

"Vortex manipulator," he said, as if it explained everything. "Cheap and nasty time travel. Very bad for you. I'm trying to give it up."

He sounded like mum when she was talking about giving up smoking.

"Where are we going?" the woman continued to ask questions and Rose wanted to roll her eyes. Obviously the man knew what was going on more than them and was in a hurry, so he'd explain on the way or when he had the time.

"The roof," the man answered just as a second him, more banged up and smoking, lacking a fez, appeared at the top of the stairs, a second Rose clutching his hand, her eyes wide with horror. He let go of the second Rose's hand and fell down the stairs.

"Doctor!" the second Rose shouted and dashed down he stairs, petting his hair and settling his head in her lap.

Rose thought the scene was sweet but also very scary. The still fez wearing Doctor knelt down beside him and used the wand thing he took from the woman's jacket to do something. Rose knelt down beside him, leaning slightly to his side and he put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer.

"Doctor, it's you," said Rory. "How can it be you?"

"Doctor, is that you?" the woman asked, her voice not quite as sure as the guard's.

"Yeah, it's me," he said slowly. "Me from the future."

"I won't let it," Rose said quietly, glancing at her future self who was refusing to meet her eyes.

The future Doctor's eyes snapped open, rested on future Rose's face fore a fraction of a second, before finding the Doctor. He shot up, pulled the Doctor's ear close and whispered something to him that Rose couldn't make out.

That seemed to be a signal of some sort as the future Rose also drew Rose closer and whispered in her ear to "save the fez," whatever that meant.

Then the future Doctor fell back to Future Rose's lap, his eyes closed. The future Rose looked at him, her eyes tearing up, and she hunched over him, covering his face from view.

"Are you?" asked the woman. "I mean, is he, is he dead?"

The Doctor stood up, bringing Rose with him. "What?" he asked, slightly dazed. "Dead? Yes, yes, of course he's dead. Right," he jumped over his own body, though Rose went around her future self, "I've got twelve minutes. That's good."

Twelve minutes. A countdown started in Rose's mind.

"Twelve minutes to live? How is that good?" asked the woman with disbelief.

"Oh, you can do loads in twelve minutes. Suck a mint, buy a sledge, have a fast bath, kill Satan, save the world," he once again kissed Rose's forehead, before pulling her to the top of the stairs. "Come on, the roof."

"We can't leave you here dead!" argued Rory.

"He's got Rose," shrugged the Doctor, turning back to him, which meant Rose turned back to him and everyone else... Except... Amy wasn't there. "But since you're in charge now, what are we going to do about Amelia?"

Her drink was on the floor but the girl herself was nowhere to be seen. Rose hadn't even noticed when the younger girl had let go of her hand.

"Where did she go?" asked the woman.

"Amelia?" called out Rory.

"There is no Amelia. From now on, there never was. History is still collapsing," the Doctor said.

History? Rose had no idea what that was, but if it collapsing her new friend had never existed, she wanted it to stop collapsing,  _right now_.

"But how can I still be here if she's not?" the woman asked, and suddenly Rose realized that the woman was her friend's future self, much like her still crouching future self was her, twelve minutes in the future.

"You're an anomaly," answered the Doctor. "We all are. We're all just hanging on at the eye of the storm. But the eye is closing, and if we don't do something fast, reality will never have happened. Today," he said jovially and gestured at his own body laying on the stairs, "just dying is a result. Now come on!" he started to pull Rose again, who followed willingly. She had a feeling she'd follow him to ends of the Universe if he just asked. A little like she was doing right now.

When they noticed the two weren't following as fast as the Doctor would have wanted, he called for them again. "Move it! Come on!"

The Doctor broke into the service area and found a ladder leading to the roof. "I'll go first, then Rose, then whatever," he said as he started climbing, his green wand thing between his teeth for easy access, which he took advantage of as he used it to open the trap door to the roof. Quickly Rose followed him, and he lifted her out when he could reach her, clasping their hands again.

"What, it's morning already? How did that happen?" asked the future, now only, Amy as she climbed out of the trap door.

"Weren't you listening to him?" asked Rose, feeling very smart. "If history is collapsing, and I have no idea what that even means, then wouldn't it make sense if day and night were shorter?"

"Smart girl, Rose Tyler," the Doctor said proudly. "The universe is collapsing. We don't have much time left." He let go of Rose's hand and jumped on something to reach a satellite receiver dish and use the wand thing to take it off its pole.

"What are you doing?" asked Rory who'd come last from the trap door.

"Looking for the TARDIS," the Doctor answered.

 _It's called the TARDIS, this thing. T A R D I S. That's Time And Relative Dimension In Space_.

"But the TARDIS exploded," pointed out Rory.

"Then he's looking for an exploding TARDIS," said Rose, looking at the giant burning ball in the sky. In her dreams, the Sun was always smaller. Could it be that the giant ball was the exploding TARDIS?

"I don't understand. So the TARDIS blew up and took the universe with it. But why would it do that? How?" Amy questioned as the Doctor made his way with the detached satellite receiver dish to the edge of the roof.

"Good question for another day," said the Doctor, noticing Rose looking at the burning ball with a frown on her face. "The question for now is, total event collapse means that every star in the universe never happened. Not one single one of them ever shone. So, if all stars that ever were are gone, then what is that?" he said and pointed at the burning ball. "Like I said, I'm looking for an exploding TARDIS."

"But that's the sun," denied Rory.

"That's the exploding TARDIS. God, you're worse than the northern guy in my dreams, and he didn't notice the London eye," Rose told him shortly. "Is it something normal for men not to notice the obvious things?" she asked the Doctor, looking up at him.

He, in turn, stared at her with wide eyes before smiling again. "Yes, which is why we all need someone to point out the obvious to us. But Rose is right indeed. That's my TARDIS burning. That's what's been keeping the Earth warm." He pointed the satellite receiver dish at the explosion and used his wand thing to amplify whatever it was picking up. "Here's the noise that the explosion is making."

A rustic, whining noise caught Rose's ears. She loved that noise, though it was her first time hearing it. But... it felt like the maker of the noise was in pain. Which shouldn't surprise Rose, since the maker of the noise was exploding.

"Doctor, there's something else," Rory said. "There's a voice."

"I can't hear anything," Amy told him quietly.

"Trust the plastic," Rory said, pointing at his ear, a little exasperated.

The Doctor did something else with the wand thing and a voice joined the noise.

"I'm sorry, my love. I'm sorry, my love. I'm sorry, my love."

Rose thought it sounded like a record struck on repeat and was quickly getting annoyed at it, especially since the woman was probably calling the Doctor her love.

"Doctor, that's River," said Amy, recognizing the voice. "How can she be up there?"

"It must be like a recording, or something," Rory said dismissively.

"No, it's not," denied the Doctor, lowering the satellite receiver dish. "Of course, the emergency protocols. The TARDIS has sealed off the control room and put her into a time loop to save her. She is right at the heart of that explosion."

Lowering the satellite receiver dish didn't cut off the "I'm sorry, my love," repeat and Rose just wished for the woman to shut up.

The Doctor started to fiddle with his vortex manipulator again and was gone in an instant, reappearing behind Amy and Rory with a woman in a white jacket and a blond mane of curls.

Immediately Rose latched onto his free arm as the other woman, River, was in the crook of the other.

"Amy!" River greeted the ginger. Then she frowned at Rory. "And the plastic Centurion?"

"It's okay, he's on our side," the Doctor told her, detaching her from him and ruffling Rose's hair, smiling down at her.

"Really?" asked River before Rose caught her attention. "And did you stop at the kindergarten on your way over?"

"I'm almost ten!" protested Rose. "And I was on a field trip!"

"That's nice sweetie," River said, dismissing her. "Right then. I have questions, but number one is this." She turned to the Doctor. "What in the name of sanity have you got on your head?"

"It's a fez," the Doctor told her excitedly. "I wear a fez now. Fezes are cool."

River looked at Amy with raised eyebrows, who the snatched the fez from the top of his head, and threw it into the air. River, in turn, drew her gun and shot it.

"Why'd you do that for?!" shouted Rose indignantly over the Doctor's disappointed  _oh._  "It was cute!"

"Exterminate!" came from under the roof edge and the Dalek floated up, like some demented pepper pot from hell, bent on killing them.

The Doctor's hand reflexively tightened around Rose's and he started to draw her behind him. "Run, run! Move, move. Go!" he shouted and pushed Rose to run to the trap door, covering her and using the satellite dish as a shield. "Down there!" he commanded.

"Come on!" shouted Rory when everyone but the Doctor were already inside.

Rose breathed shallowly and her heart beat frantically as the Doctor locked the trap door with his wand thing.

"Doctor, come on," River said tightly, her gun aimed on the trap door in case the Dalek got it open.

"Shush. It's moving away, finding another way in," he said and started to climb down the ladder. "It needs to restore its power before it can attack again." He was on the floor again and looked at his watch. "Now, that means we've got exactly four and a half minutes," he dashed past Amy, Rory and River to Rose, "before it reaches lethal capacity." He crouched in front of Rose and took her face in his hands. "Rose, are you okay?" he asked urgently.

She couldn't speak but she nodded quickly and clasped his hand again.

"How do you know?" asked Rory.

The Doctor turned to look at him like he was an idiot. "Because that's when it's due to kill me," he said calmly and started running down the stairs.

That caught River's attention. "Kill you? What do you mean, kill you?" she asked as she followed them.

"Oh shut up, never mind," snapped the Doctor, ushering Rose before him.

"How can that Dalek exist?" asked Rose. "If there's never been other planets beside Earth, where's it from?"

"Exactly," said the Doctor and tweaked her nose as the reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the upper corridor.

"You said the light from the Pandorica," said Rory, following them.

"It's not a light, it's a restoration field," corrected the Doctor and Rose could tell he was getting frustrated. "But never mind, call it a light. That light brought Amy back, restored her, but how could it bring back a Dalek when Daleks have never existed?"

"Okay, tell us," urged Amy and they stopped there.

"When the TARDIS blew up, it caused a total event collapse. A time explosion. And that explosion blasted every atom in every moment of the universe. Except..." he stopped meaningfully.

"Except... inside the Pandorica," said Amy, realization dawning on her face.

"The perfect prison," the Doctor said, getting excited as pieces fell into place. "And inside it, perfectly preserved, a few billion atoms of the universe as it was. In theory, you could extrapolate the whole universe from a single one of them, like, like cloning a body from a single cell. And we've got the bumper family pack."

_Is that a tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator?_

_Three Doctors? - I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now._

Rory shook his head. "No, not. Too fast, I'm not getting it."

"The box contains a memory of the universe," the Doctor explained, "and the light transmits the memory, and that's how we're going to do it."

He turned around and started walking, Rose nearly jogging to keep up with his long strides.

"Do what?" Amy called after them.

"Relight the fire. Reboot the universe. Come on!" he called over his shoulder.

"Doctor, you're being completely ridiculous. The Pandorica partially restored one Dalek," said River as she ran to catch up. "If it can't even reboot a single life form properly, how's it going to reboot the whole of reality?"

"It's not," said Rose. They all looked at her. "It's not the whole of reality, just this universe. We're not dealing with a reality bomb detonated at the heart of the Medusa Cascade here. Though the result would have been the same for this universe anyway. Also, the Doctor doesn't mean to let the Pandorica do it on its own."

"Oh, what would you know," River dismissed her again.

"Obviously more than you," retorted Rose. "Because what is exploding in every atom in every second of history right now? One spark to start the house fire."

"Brilliant," the Doctor grinned down at her, kissing her forehead again. "Infinite power for the restoration field for one moment is all we need."

River looked from Rose to the Doctor. "Well, that's lovely dear, but we can't, because it's completely impossible."

"We eat impossible for breakfast," said Rose, echoing her dreams.

"That we do," agreed the Doctor. "And, you see," he told River, "it's almost completely impossible. One spark is all we need." He started to hurry away again.

"For what?" River called after him.

"Big Bang two! Now listen."

He never got to tell them as the Dalek turned the corner and shot him, making his skeleton flash blue through his flesh.

_A tall man in a pinstriped suite was running towards her with the biggest, happiest grin Rose had ever seen, until they both noticed the Dalek a street away. Before either could react more than to slow down, the Dalek had fired the shot that hit the man, making his bones flash through his flesh and crumple to the ground. Rose flung away her gun and ran to him, cradling his head as he whispered her name._

The Doctor crumpled to the ground, just like the man in Rose's dream, and Rose immediately fell beside him, mirroring her dream self. River was on his other side, lightly tapping his face.

"Exterminate! Exterminate!" the Dalek cried behind Rose and Amy and Rory took cover behind the corner.

"Rose, get back. River, get back now!" Rory urged them, but Rose knew she couldn't move, otherwise she wouldn't appear with the Doctor twelve minutes ago.

"Exterminate!" the Dalek cried again as Rory shot at it, powering it down.

River turned the Doctor's face to her but his eyes stubbornly stayed on Rose as she held his hand. "Doctor? Doctor, it's me, River. Can you hear me? What is it? What do you need?" River asked while he activated the vortex manipulator.

And Rose was torn in two. Literally. There were two of her. One with the Doctor and one stayed with River, Amy, Rory and the Dalek.

The one that stayed with the company had gold flashing in her eyes.

"Where did he go?" demanded River as she stood up. Rose followed suit more slowly, sedately. "Damn it, he could be anywhere!"

"He went downstairs, twelve minutes ago," said Amy.

"Then how's Rose here?" asked Rory.

"Show me!" River demanded.

"River, he died," Amy told her softly.

"System restoring," said the Dalek behind Rose's back, making her turn slowly. "You will be exterminated."

"We've got to move, that thing's coming back to life!" Rory reasoned.

"You go to the Doctor. I'll be right with you," River said. She laid a hand on Rose's shoulder. "You too sweetie, you knew what he wanted."

Rose shook her head mutely, peripherally aware of what her other self had been doing in the last twelve minutes, refusing to move.

"You will be exterminated!" the Dalek cried.

"Not yet," River said, her voice steely, stepping to stand beside Rose, loading her gun. "Your systems are still restoring, which means your shield density is compromised. One Alpha-Mezon burst through your eye stalk would kill you stone dead." She aimed her gun.

The Dalek stopped advancing. "Records indicate you will show mercy. You are an associate of the Doctor's."

"I am the Bad Wolf," Rose said, her voice echoing and eyes flashing golden. "Check your records again."

The Dalek was quiet for a second. "Mercy. Help! Mercy!"

"I have no mercy," she said and lifted her hand. "I see every atom of your existence, and I divide them."

The Dalek burst into golden dust, its final cry of "Mercyyy!" echoing in the corridor.

"What are you?" River asked the little girl next to her, staring at her with wide eyes. "I've never heard a Dalek shout like that."

"I looked into the heart of the TARDIS and she looked into me," the girl answered. "I am the end of the Time War. I bring life. I am Rose Tyler, and I create myself. Whenever I get lost, I'll lead myself to the Doctor as long as he needs and wants me." She felt her consciousness start to return to her other self. "You have chosen a painful path, Melody Pond, for you will never be what he wants, but may yet be what he needs."

With those words she faded and her other self got her memories, not really understanding them, but as she helped the Doctor with the final wires, doing as she was told, she found she didn't really as long as she was with him.

Then she felt the energy drain of scattering the Dalek's atoms, slumping against the Doctor's chest, his free arm curling around her tiredly.

Distantly she heard the others enter the room, but she didn't even have the energy to open her eyes, much less understand what they were talking about as she nuzzled the Doctor's equally slumped head. She felt someone start extracting her from the Doctor, but she stubbornly curled her hands in his tweed jacket and felt his free hand hold her just a little bit tighter. Whoever was trying to separate her from the Doctor gave up, and Rose heard them talking again, and the Doctor answer tiredly.

'*'*'*'*'*'*'*'*'*'*'*'*'

The next thing she knew, she was being held in someone's lap and she could hear a man talking.

"We're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Because it was, you know. It was the best. The daft old man who stole a magic box and ran away. Did I ever tell you I stole it? Well, borrowed it. I was always going to take it back. Oh, that box, Amy, you'll dream about that box. It'll never leave you. Big and little at the same time. Brand new and ancient, and the bluest blue ever. And the times we had, eh? Would have had. Never had. In your dreams, they'll still be there. The Doctor and Amy Pond, and the days that never came. The cracks are closing. But they can't close properly until Rose and I are on the other side. We don't belong here anymore."

The man jostled Rose a little as he stood up, holding her carefully.

"I think I'll skip the rest of the rewind. I hate repeats. Live well. Love Rory. Bye bye, Pond," the man said, leaned down and then stood up, Rose still in his arms, and walked towards the light.

She lifted her head groggily and opened her eyes. There was nothing around them, just the Doctor, smiling sadly at her. "Well, good morning, sleeping beauty. Had a nice nap?"

"Doctor?" Rose frowned at him. Two sets of memories were trying to push themselves to the forefront of her mind. In one she was nine, in the other she was mentally forty-three but physically maybe twenty-one. In one her last memory was of being in the Doctor's lap in the Pandorica. In the other her last memory was of throwing herself into a crack in the skin of the universe. Her husband had wanted to go, but he... he was physically born twenty years ago and hadn't done any time traveling and therefore wasn't complicated enough to seal it.

Rose looked down at herself. Her body was that of a nine-year-old.

"How the heck did I revert in age?"

The Doctor stopped walking and looked down at her. "What?"

"Well, physically I was at least twenty-one last time I checked," she said. "Now I'm, what, nine?"

"Almost ten," grinned the Doctor, hugging her even closer.

"Yippee," muttered Rose. You could really hear the excitement in her voice. "If I stay this way, I'll have to go through puberty again."

"Not much else to do in the Void."

Rose leaned a little away from him and looked him over, an expression on her face that shouldn't have been there for at least six or seven years. "Oh, I don't know... If I were some ten years older, I could do you."

The Doctor blushed under her gaze. "The language you use, Rose Tyler! You naughty girl, you."

Rose laughed. "Twenty years of marriage will do that to you. Twenty years of marriage to you and it's a surprise I wear clothes inside the flat at all. Mind you, you weren't much better at keeping your clothes on than I was."

"Randy lot, you apes."

"Now who's calling the kettle black! Randy lot you Time Lords! At least with your bonded mate," she finished with a small, superior smirk that told the Doctor that she had won the argument.

Then he suddenly stiffened and his brow furrowed. "I'm getting a second set of memories. Why am I getting a second set of memories? Oh... of course... couldn't imagine a life in which I forgot Rose Tyler so I followed her through the crack. Oh my, we really were randy, weren't we?" Then he gasped. "Rose! I can feel you in my mind!"

"I told you, Time Lords are randy with their bonded mates."

The Doctor looked Rose in the eyes and she could feel the emotions rushing through him. It was the same excitement and joy and love as when they'd bonded. For half of this Doctor this was the first time he'd felt a mental presence since he'd ended the Time War and for the other half it was the relief to find her still there after that three seconds of silence that he'd lasted before following her through the crack.

"I want to kiss you but it'd be weird because your body isn't even ten years old," he confessed softly.

"I know," she answered just as softly. "I want to kiss you too but I can't feel the physical urge I normally get from hormones." They were quiet for a while that might have been a minute or could have been ten years. "Did this happen to Time Lords? That one part of a bonded pair was physically too young for the mating after a regeneration?"

The Doctor sat down on nothing and rearranged her on his lap. "Well, there was a legend about it happening once, int the very beginning of our ability to regenerate but before we'd shunned emotions. There was this one couple that met when the male of the two was already a couple hundred years old and the female was barely into her first century. It happened three time so them, that she was too young for the physical aspect of their relationship right after regeneration. They're the reason we even had controlled regeneration, so that no other bonded pair had to go through that. It nearly drove them both mad, but in the end they pulled through."

They cuddled in silence with no notion of the time passing, as there was no such thing in the Void.

"So we're in the Void with nothing to do but wait for me to grow up?" said Rose finally.

"Well, I suppose I could tell you what happened after... you know... and before Pandorica," the Doctor offered.

"Well go on then! How did you meet Amy?"

"I had just regenerated and the TARDIS had exploded because of my rather explosive regeneration. I crashed into her garden, side ways mind you, and the gravity center must've been broken, because I had to climb to the doors using a grappling hook and some rope. So there I was, just regenerated and wet as a dunked rat, peeking from the TARDIS, and there's this little girl in her nightie and wellies and a cardigan, pointing her torch at me and all I can think about is apples..."

They talked.

Sometimes they noticed that she had aged a little, sometimes she hadn't aged at all. When she had aged enough, about sixteen or seventeen, they made love in the nothingness of the Void, though at first it still felt a little awkward as she hadn't finished developing and her body wasn't as well endowed as he remembered. There were other times when she was the one who found his body odd, as that place hadn't used to be sensitive while that place had always made him giggle uncontrollably but now made him moan wantonly or had no affect at all.

The had fun learning each other again, mentally and physically. They pestered the other about things they hadn't talked of before, the Time War and Jimmy Stone among them.

The talk about hypothetical things, like what they'd eat first if they ever got out of the Void again, or what they'd name their first child, should they ever conceive outside the Void. There is no life or death in the Void, so nothing new can be created, but nothing can be taken away either.

But suddenly they heard a voice that belongs to neither of them. They knew the voice, they know they do, but it took them some time to realize it's Amy. Amy calling them back to existence.

Calling the Doctor to existence.

But he refused to go alone, resisting the call, pulling Rose with him.

And suddenly they're standing in the console room, Verdi's Triumphal March playing in the background.

They blinked at the colors and the floor under them. For the longest time they could only see, feel, hear, taste and smell each other, and now their senses were being overwhelmed by all the sensory input.

"Let's take a week to recover before going to Amy and Rory's wedding, shall we?" the Doctor said, offering his arm to her with a loving smile. "It's a time machine, they won't know the difference. Besides... what a spectacle we'd make of we couldn't look at Amy's ginger hair or listen to the music because we thought it too loud, or being unable to eat the food because we haven't tasted anything in... well..."

"A very long time," finished Rose with a smile. "We need to get back to the habit of eating too. And sleeping. And we need to learn to kiss again with breathing breaks."

"Hah! I don't!" cheered the Doctor. "I've got the respiratory bypass system."

"And that's enough of your superior physiology, because I think you have better things to do with that mouth of yours," she smiled at him.

"That's true," he said and drew her closer, leaning down to kiss her, but stopping mere centimeters from her lips. "I could be eating jammie dodgers and drinking tea."

Rose burst out laughing. "We'll get you jammie dodgers when you get me chips," she told him, drawing him deeper to the TARDIS. "But first... I think there's a room I have yet to see on the TARDIS, namely, your bedroom."

The familiar glint took over his eyes and images of what was to come bombarded her her mind.

"Promises, promises, old man," she teased him. "Are you sure you can keep up with me?"

"Cheeky monkey, Rose Tyler," he growled, making her squeal and run off. With a grin he ran after her laughing form.

Exactly a week later they were in the TARDIS console room dressed to the nines and ready to do some dancing and eat too much cake at Amy and Rory's wedding, rushing around the console in a familiar dance of piloting the TARDIS.

They landed and heard a knock on the door.

"Okay Doctor, did I surprise you this time?" they heard Amy call through the door

Arm in arm they made their way to the door, the Doctor opening it and being the first one to be seen by Amy.

"Er, yeah. Completely astonished," he deadpanned. "Never expected that. How lucky I happened to be wearing this old thing." He stepped out of the TARDIS, offering his hand to Rose to help her out. "Hello everyone, I'm Amy's imaginary friend. But I came anyway. And this is Rose Tyler. She's my plus one. That alright?"

Amy couldn't take her eyes off of him. "You absolutely, definitely may kiss the bride," she said, tears gathering in her eyes.

The Doctor grinned. "Don't mind if I do," he said to everyone's shock, but instead of stealing a kiss from Amy, he turned around and planted a deep one on Rose.

When they came up for air, she laughed and hit him on the arm. "You're such an idiot. She meant herself."

"Really?" he asked and turned to Amy with a frown. "Amelia, from now on I shall be leaving the kissing duties to the brand new Mister Pond," he said seriously.

"No, I'm not Mister Pond," sighed Rory. "That's not how it works."

"Yeah it is," the Doctor answered with conviction.

"Yeah, he couldn't think of me as Rose Smith, so the only answer he came up with was for him to be Doctor Tyler," Rose explained with a grin.

The Doctor shuddered. "Don't say that name in conjunction to yours. It's the stuff of nightmares."

"My ex-boyfriend's name was Mickey Smith," Rose whispered theatrically to Rory. "And if I hadn't met the Doctor, we'd likely be married now. Mind you, I think Mickey's happy with his own wife, Martha, who's also traveled with the Doctor."

"Ah, Rickey the Idiot," the Doctor clasped his hand over his left heart. "May his days as the idiot be forever gone." Then he looked around. "Right then. Rose and I have to move our box. You're going to need the space. We only came for the dancing. And cake. Cake and dancing. Our own wedding was invaded by aliens before we got to either."


End file.
